


What Tanner Would Have Wanted

by miss_tatiana



Category: Sagas of Sundry: Dread (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon, because i didnt think there was enough closure given there, its just dealing with tanner's death, lots of hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15647910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: five of them went up the mountain. four of them came down. sat and kayden cope the only way they know how to- by looking after each other.





	1. on the mountain

**Author's Note:**

> im sad about the dread kids 24/7

Sat felt numb as they walked up the mountain. She felt furious and lost and heartbroken all at once, which seemed to add up to feeling nothing, until she looked at her friends. She couldn’t look at Darby without feeling sick, she couldn’t look at Raina without starting to cry. If she had to hear Kayden apologize one more time she was going to hit him. 

Tanner’s words kept ricocheting around her head, her name on his lips with his dying breath. Part of her wished she could forget ever hearing it, forget this whole fucking thing, but the other part of her was clinging to each and every lingering memory of Tanner she could. 

_ I love you, Sat. _

It had been so matter of fact, and it had been in his last second before the fucking corpses reached him. Her chest hurt. No, her heart. Her heart hurt. And so did her head, a pounding headache taking up residence due to the dehydration of crying. 

Tanner loved everyone here. Hell, Tanner had only come back so he could see them again. Tanner put up with Kayden to see them again. Even more, Tanner loved them so much that he missed even Kayden.

Kayden, who was now covered in another man’s blood, who was stumbling behind everyone else and not trying to hide the fact that he was crying. 

Sat sighed, and came to the realization that everyone was just as impacted by what happened as she was. That she wasn’t the only victim. She made herself look around at her friends. 

Darby was clutching the contents of the red box at her sides as she led them determinedly up and up the mountain. Her makeup was smudged and her tie was loose but she kept walking, kept her eyes trained on the path ahead of her. 

Raina kept opening her mouth as if to speak but stopping before any words came out, kept reaching out as if to touch Darby but retracting her hand before she made contact. Her hands were fists at her sides, and she was the same strong person who’d held the door closed against an impossible opponent, just without anything to fight now. 

Kayden, Sat’s best friend, the guy she’d dragged into doing everything with her, had his eyes focused on the ground even though the unsurety of his feet proved he wasn’t really watching his step. Tears coursed steadily down his face and every once in a while, he’d bring up a hand to absentmindedly wipe them away, staining his cheeks with Simon’s blood. 

“I’m sorry.” Sat said it out loud. She’d made them all apologize to her over and over and she’d never addressed the fact that she brought them all up the mountain the first time. And then, “This is my fault.”

Darby stopped walking and turned around. “No it’s not.”

“It was me,” Raina said softly. “I shouldn’t have given him the bow.” 

“No, I called you all, I brought you all here,” Darby put in. “It’s on me and I’ve accepted that." 

“Raina, he took that bow, you weren’t going to stop him,” Kayden said, catching up with the rest of them. “Darby, you just wanted some fucking validation, it’s not- it’s my fault. I should have been able to- I should have gotten in the way. Should’ve protected him.” 

Sat caught herself starting to cry. “It’s not on any of you, though, okay?” she insisted, voice low. “It isn’t what- Tanner wouldn’t have wanted us to fight about this. It was me, you don’t have to feel guilty about it, let’s leave it. I just wanted to say that.”

They all looked like they were going to argue, but Sat started walking past them along the path again, and everyone followed suit. 

They didn’t stop walking again until they were halfway up the mountain, and needed a break to breathe. The sun was getting low over the thin New Mexico forest, and night was falling too quickly, as it always did on Black Mountain. 

Sat leaned against a tree, watched Raina and Darby worry over each other across the little outcropping they’d stopped on. She caught her breath, tried not to think. When Kayden came up to her, she didn’t look at him. 

“Sat, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t- I’m so sorry.” 

“Don’t,” Sat said, rubbing her temple. “Don’t-”

“I love you,” Kayden said. 

Sat heard the words in Tanner’s voice in her head and sighed. She could only remember Kayden getting like this, apologizing and crying, once before, and it had been bad. Not as bad as losing Tanner, but bad. She finally looked up at him. “I know.” 

“I love you so much.” He dropped his head onto her shoulder, hiding his face in her hair and leaning into her. 

She was torn between telling him to get it together and letting him have a minute, not knowing which would help more. She put an arm around him, pulling him even closer. “We’re going to get him back,” she whispered. 

“No we’re not.” Kayden’s voice was muffled. “I want to see him again just as much as you do, but he’s not coming back.”

“Don’t say that.” Sat threaded her fingers through his hair. “Anything can happen here.”

“Not that.” Kayden sounded so sure. “Sat, I’m sorry that I didn’t call. I’m sorry I let him die.”

“Kayden-”

“I love him.” Kayden took a shaky breath. “Loved, I guess. I loved him.” 

“I loved him too.” Sat stepped back so she could look at Kayden. “I love you. I’m so pissed at you for dropping out on me like that but you’re still my best friend, and I’m going to make sure we both come back down, alright?”

Kayden nodded, wiping his face. “We’re all getting off this mountain alive if it’s the last fucking thing we do,” he promised. “I’m not- I’m not going to lose anyone else.” 

Sat gave him another hug, quicker this time. 

“And Sat,” he said, taking one of her hands in both of his, “I swear to fucking god I’m never going quiet on you again. I’m going to call you every day when we get back down. No, I’m making you move in with me, you hear?”

Sat smiled, and then, for the first time since Tanner, she was laughing. She couldn’t stop herself. She leaned in to kiss him like she would have in high school, and then she felt guilty about it, and kissed his cheek instead. 

The minute they started hiking again, her mind was back on Tanner. On what Tanner would do if he were here, on what it would mean if Tanner could hear her say that she loved him back. 

She thought of him all through the ritual, and waited throughout all the fighting and throughout all the blood to see him appear, maybe out of the darkness, maybe in a cloud of desert sand. She could picture him, her boy, walking up to them like nothing had happened, doing his little half smile when they told him how much they missed him. She would kiss him, she thought, and he would kiss her back and everything would be okay. Then Kayden would take them both home and they’d never have to set foot on the mountain again. She waited, and wished, and visualized, and waited, and the curse was lifted.

And Tanner wasn’t there. 

Sat thought she was going to be angry. She could almost feel it, rising in her veins, just a blind fury at Darby for lying, at all of them for not trying hard enough to get him back. But then the relief kicked in, and she was crying, yeah, but it wasn’t out of anger. The mountain was cleansed, the land was freed from the curse. The four of them that were left were going to make it out alive. 

They stumbled down the mountain together as the sun set, all giddy with relief, all holding onto each other, all grieving. They made it back into the town they’d grown up in and before they got to Kayden’s apartment, they’d already been stopped by the cops. 

They let Raina do the talking, let Raina explain how there was a cave in that had trapped Tanner, let Raina implore the authorities to go rescue him. It turned out the cops had been called by Tanner’s parents, so the mention of Tanner was enough to send them away. 

“Do you think they’re going to find anything?” asked Darby. 

Raina sighed. “Let’s not think about that.” 

They did a night over like they used to in high school, only this time they didn’t split off into separate rooms when it got late, and they didn’t drink too much, just enough. They didn’t talk much, and when they did it was quiet and short and not very pertinent to what they’d just come home from. 

In the morning, Raina and Darby left after breakfast and hugs and promises to keep in touch, holding hands. Sat stayed. 


	2. home

It wasn’t really addressed for the first week or so. Sat slept on the couch and cooked prepackaged meals for herself when Kayden wasn’t home. When he finally brought it up, she’d said that it was just until she got her feet on the ground, and he’d nodded. 

Kayden worked his shitty job at the video store, and was only at home in the mornings and evenings, and sometimes on weekends. He was exhausted, not just because of that but because he wasn’t sleeping much. Sat knew that. She couldn’t sleep much either, and she heard the click of his lighter some nights, when she was trying not to hear her memories. 

When he wasn’t home, she watched TV with little interest and barely ate, not having the energy to make food. It was easier not to think about Tanner, to do normal things so things would seem normal. She tried to forget all about the mountain, about everything, by filling her days with small tasks, like doing dishes and drawing tattoo designs. 

She and Kayden didn’t even talk much, both of them scared that if they did, the conversation would stray to the topic of Tanner, and they’d have to deal with thinking about that all over again. They did small talk. They did ‘good morning’s and ‘how was your day’s. They did each other’s makeup every morning without exchanging much in way of words.

There were moments when Sat forgot about the mountain and about everything, when something Kayden said was too funny, or she found the rare engaging TV program. Then she could be happy, and it was good. She’d pointed out that Kayden’s hair was growing back in a little, and the moment she mentioned it he’d dragged her to the bathroom and made her shave it again, and that was one of the good moments. One of the few good moments. 

After the first two weeks, Kayden’s manic depression became much more obvious, whether it was just getting worse or if he wasn’t trying to hide it as much anymore. Sat didn’t know if it was just hyped up because of losing Tanner, but she hadn’t remembered it being as prevalent. He’d keep her up past midnight some nights, baking shit and drawing and relaying plans to redo the apartment. Other nights he’d lock himself in his room until she was more than worried. The best way to deal with it, she’d found, was to not make comments. If they didn’t talk about it, they could pretend it wasn’t a problem. 

They mostly just moved around each other, lived around each other, with Kayden gone all day and Sat not wanting to talk when he was home. Occasionally, as time went on, there were more good days, but not very steadily. 

They were into their fifth week together when Sat picked up a job at the local cafe, knowing that if she spent another day alone in the apartment she was going to lose her mind. 

“This means you’re out, right?” Kayden asked when she told him about it. 

They were sitting on the couch after dinner, most of the lights out but nothing on the little TV in the corner of the living room. 

“I mean…” Sat didn’t want to abuse his generosity, but she was also scared of the prospect of waking up on her own. “I guess.” 

“When?”

Sat stared at the wall across the room. “As soon as I have enough for a down payment.” 

“Shit.” Kayden shook his head. “I want to have a thing when you move out, alright? Like, I could bake you cookies, or we could get high, or… just whatever you want.” 

“Cookies sound good,” Sat said quietly. She didn’t say anything about the getting high part, because she hadn’t touched any drugs since they came down from the mountain but she knew that he had, and she wasn’t ready to have that conversation now. “Kayden-”

“I’m happy for you,” he said, before she could finish. “It’s, uh. It’s what he would have wanted.” 

Sat nodded, pressing her lips together as her eyes filled up with tears. She sniffed. “I miss him,” she said, voice high and tight, because she could say a million other things but she and Kayden had always been honest with each other and they weren’t stopping now. 

“Fuck, me too.” Kayden covered his face with his hands momentarily before looking up at the ceiling and sighing deeply. “Sat, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” 

Sat couldn’t talk. She leaned against him, putting her head on his shoulder. She tried not to cry, because she hated crying, but it was too late to stop herself. She couldn’t even think about Tanner now without breaking down. 

Kayden put an arm around her. “Please stay,” he said, almost too quietly to be heard. 

Sat looked up at him. 

“Please, please don’t go.” Kayden wouldn’t make eye contact. “Please.”

“Okay,” Sat said, wiping her eyes. “I don’t- I don’t need my own place, I could just… help with rent here.”

Kayden let out a breath, and relief radiated off him. “Sat, I cannot let what happened to you last year happen again, and if you were alone I couldn’t- I couldn’t make sure you were safe.”

“Are you worried about me?” Sat teased, trying to get back some of the banter they would have had before the mountain. 

“Of course I’m fucking worried about you,” Kayden breathed, pulling her into a quick hug. When he let go, he had the ghost of a smile on his face. “It’s a two way street too, though. I honestly think I would have been dead within a week of coming back if you hadn’t stayed with me.” 

Sat felt cold. “Really?”

“Oh, for sure.” Kayden laughed. “Yeah.”

“It’s not funny, Kayden,” Sat said sharply. 

Kayden shrugged. “I think it is, at least a little-” 

Sat kissed him so she wouldn’t have to hear any more, and because she hadn’t kissed him in over a year, and because she did love him. It was so familiar, and she suddenly remembered that her relationship with Kayden had always been about comfort. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed him, really, until she had him like this again. She kissed him until he tangled his hands up in her hair, then she pulled back a few inches. “Not funny, okay?”

“Okay,” he murmured. 

“I already lost him, I’m not losing you too.” Sat pressed a kiss to Kayden’s forehead. 

Kayden’s eyes were closed, and he leaned into that kiss. “Alright. You’re staying?”

“I’m staying,” Sat promised. “And we’re going to take care of each other, okay? It’s what-”

“Right.” Kayden smiled a genuine smile for a second, and rested his head on Sat’s shoulder. “It’s what Tanner would have wanted.”


End file.
